


Meeting of the Minds

by multifandomdiva



Series: Inexplicable Ties That Bind [2]
Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Numb3rs, Scorpion (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, M/M, Multi, Original Character(s), Thanksgiving
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-17
Updated: 2015-07-18
Packaged: 2018-02-28 00:28:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2712308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/multifandomdiva/pseuds/multifandomdiva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scorpion is called to take care of a security issue at Charlie's house during the holidays.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Night Before the Cyclone's Arrival

**Author's Note:**

> All recognizable characters belong to their respective owners, all others belong to me. I'm just playing in these worlds and tinkering as I see fit. I make no profit off these stories.  
> This is a scene that will be part of a series that contains several original characters and crossovers among several different cop dramas that I love, set in a universe where those police procedurals are reality shows instead, and certain kinds of ESP are not necessarily commonplace, but are accepted as a fact of life. Most of those stories will be mature audiences, but I put a teen and up on this one only because of the hints of polyamory relationships.  
> This is un-beta'd so any mistakes are mine alone. If you leave any negative comments, please make sure they are of the constructive criticism variety. Thanks.

"Walter said he will be here about ten o'clock, barring any Homeland Security emergency," said Charlie. "I told him to make sure Ralph came with them so that he can play with Phoebe." 

"I'll make sure to have her up and ready, she won't want to miss an opportunity to make a new friend. I know she's been eager to find someone to play with that is around her age and mental development level since she got here last week. It will give her a break from sessions with Uncle Sandy for the day. She needs different activities than talking about her trauma," said Lia.

"If things go well, make sure to get Paige's number so we can set up future play-dates with Ralph. I know he's a bit older than her, but i'm hoping the mental development levels will be close enough that it won't matter. Who would have figured I'd have a genius kid? I'm the jock/ farm boy/ soldier," Colby said, laughing.

"I always knew you were playing dumb, Colby. You understand a bit too much of what Charlie has to say for you to be a 'dumb jock'," teased Alan.

"This has been an exhausting day,guys. I didn't realize when I set up a stay here that I'd be getting hands on training on raising a kid while pregnant with twins. She's full of energy, and I can only funnel so much of it into learning activities. if she actually felt like moving around more, I would be in real trouble," said Lia, smiling. 

"We are just glad your visit happened to coincide with Phoebe's arrival. Having you around has been a great help with her. The case worker said she has never seen a child who has been abused so badly bounce back so quickly, and we know we have you to partially to thank for that. I can't hope enough that Janice gets life for sending her to that re-programming camp. They sent us the notice of the termination of her parental rights by overnight courier, so we should be seeing that paperwork tomorrow as well. I just wish mom had lived longer to see what a smart granddaughter she has," said Colby, taking another pull from his beer. Lia squeezed his other hand and Charlie put his arm around Colby and pulled him into a sideways hug. He looked at both of them with an appreciative, sad smile. 

"Well, I'm turning in," said Alan. "I think I'll try to get up and make waffles in the morning for Phoebe before going into the office. Remember, Millie will be here tomorrow night for dinner." 

"Thanks for the warning, Dad." 

"Very funny,Charlie. Goodnight." Alan went out the kitchen door into his garage apartment, shutting the door as quietly as possible to avoid waking the little girl upstairs. 

"We should probably turn in, too. Early day at the office for me tomorrow. Don will have my ass if I'm late. He's so much harder on me now that I'm with his brother."

"He just wants to make sure the rest of the team doesn't think he's going to give you special treatment because you're part of his family now." 

"Megan told me she thinks he'll let up some time next century," giggled Lia. Charlie snorted. Colby just rolled his eyes and helped Lia up off of the couch. "I hope we all sleep better than last night. Phoebe had a rough night with nightmares last night, and she refused to go to you two because she said she'd already been keeping her daddies up too much at night. I let her sleep in bed with me, then I had a nightmare because I got too hot. She asked me about it. I told her it wasn't her issue to worry about because I didn't want to add to her nightmares. She wouldn't let it go, though. She told me some of her nightmares come because she gets too cold in her sleep and it reminds her of the hole they had her in at the camp. I told her I would try to make sure she had plenty of blankets available. She noticed I was sweating, and asked If my nightmares were caused by being too hot. I told her sometimes they were. She asked if she was the reason for the nightmare. I told her it wasn't because of her, I was kinda upset about other things and then I got hot, she could never be the direct cause of a nightmare. She hugged me and I gave her all but the sheet to snuggle into. It was a long night."

"You really should have come to get one of us, Lia. She's going to have to get used to coming to us with her problems," Charlie said in a hushed voice as they walked toward the staircase.

"It's not a big deal, I just figured since I'm here I could take a shift with the nightmares. I know this is going to sound weird, but I think that we should sit down with her and tell her that we are all afraid of some things, and all adults get nightmares sometimes. I think she would feel more comfortable telling you about hers if she knows she's not the only one to have them. "

"That makes sense. Tomorrow before bedtime we'll do that. Thanks Lia."

They had just started to ascend the stairs when they heard the cries of their little girl. Colby bolted the rest of the way up the staircase with Charlie close behind. Lia was bringing up the rear, having a more difficult time with stairs as the pregnancy progressed and made her bigger and slower. She arrived at the door to Phoebe's room to see the two daddies cuddling the distressed little girl, reassuring her it was just another bad dream. Lia stood there for a moment, taking in the sight. Charlie and Colby had all the skills they needed to cope with this, even if they were afraid. She started to go back to the room she'd been staying in when Phoebe called out to her, "Lia, stay too."

~~~

The alarm in Colby and Charlie's room had gone off at a bright and early five a.m. with a whole host of occupants to wake. Colby was, of course, the first to wake and scramble out of the tangle of sheets and people on the bed to shut off the alarm. His little girl, who had been clinging to him, got up just after with a stretch and yawn. She, at least, looked rested. He gave her a kiss on the forehead and a hug, and silently slipped into the master bathroom to get himself ready for a long work day with Don and the rest of the team. Lia awoke next as she felt Phoebe moving around next to her and she looked over at the girl, who was conspiratorially giving her the shush finger and pointing at Charlie. "We should get Papa up,too,"Phoebe whispered loudly to Lia. 

"We should? I think we should let him sleep in just a little," said Lia, in the same stage whisper.

"Nope," the little girl replied, "if I have to be up before the sun is up, so does everybody!"

"Okay," said Lia, smiling. "How do you want to get Papa out of bed?" Phoebe replied by making tickling claws with her hands and pointing at Charlie, giggling. Lia rolled toward Charlie and gave a silent count toward Phoebe with her fingers. When Lia got to three, they both started tickling Charlie like their lives depended on it, with Phoebe cackling wildly and Lia giggling. Charlie reached out and grabbed Phoebe, pulling her sleepily into a hug and returning her tickles. Phoebe laughed and squirmed like a mad woman, until Charlie caught her eye and they both honed in on Lia, tickling her until she cried, "Mercy! Mercy! You win!"

The day was definitely starting better than yesterday ended.


	2. The Cyclone Hits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team Scorpion arrives to help with the security system; Paige and Lia discuss Phoebe's past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All familiar characters belong to their respective owners, all others belong to me. I make no profit from these stories. This is un-beta'ed, so all mistakes are mine. Please make any criticism constructive. Thanks

At nine forty five, Lia saw a big black van and a red sedan pull up into the driveway. "I think Walter and his team are here, Charlie," she yelled toward the solarium. This caused Charlie and Phoebe to come running into the living room.

"That's him alright." Charlie said as he walked toward the door. "Are you ready to meet Ralph?" Phoebe nodded her head and gave her Papa a big smile. "That's my girl." Charlie heard the knock and waited a second before pulling open the door. Walter was knocking on the door pretty hard and he didn't want to accidentally get hit. "Come on in and I'll introduce all of you before we get to work. Lia, this is Walter O'Brien. We went to college together for a while. He'll have to introduce you to the rest of his team, I don't want to mess it up."

"Nice to meet you, Lia. On my right is Happy Quinn, our team's engineering expert. To her right is Toby Curtis, our team's behavior analyst. To his right is Sylvester Dodd, our team's number cruncher, and on my left is my girlfriend, and our team's people liaison, Paige, and her son, Ralph." 

"It's nice to meet you all. I've seen some of the shows they've made about your work. You guys are an awesome team. This is Phoebe, Colby and Charlie's daughter."

"Hi," said Phoebe, warily peeking out from behind Lia. Looking at Ralph, and smiling, she said, "Hello, Ralph. want to play Math Game with me?" Ralph tilted his head in a questioning manner, then followed Phoebe into the dining room to sit at the table.

"What is Math Game? She seemed to be pretty proud of the idea," said Paige.

"She has a gift for words, and some higher math ability, so she made up a game to play with Charlie. She named it Math Game. She makes up a story with whatever fantasy she can come up with and weaves it with numbers to eventually come up with a complex story problem for Charlie to solve. I told her that maybe Ralph would like to play it. They will probably be asking us to check the work later, but we will have to send them in to see the team for that, I'm no genius. I just seem to like dealing with them," said Lia, smiling at Charlie and nodding her head toward the dining room table. "Let's go to the kitchen and let Charlie and the team get to work in the solarium."

~~~~

"So you aren't Phoebe's mother? The way she was clinging to you before, it made me think you were,"said Paige, as they watched the kids from the other end of the room. 

"No, and I'm afraid if I ever meet her mother I'll do something I'll regret. She sent that poor girl to a reprogramming camp that the cult she decided to join puts on in the summer. Phoebe was found in a pit in the ground in nothing but a nightshirt and undies, half-starved, covered in her own filth and bruised up pretty badly. She had a perfect boot print in her side from the commandant at the camp getting frustrated with his lack of progress in changing her mind and kicking her. She was lucky, they found her just as she was slipping into shock. A few more hours and we would be mourning that sweet little girl, instead of watching her play Math Game with a new friend.   
I suffered abuse at the hands of my mother for much the same reason that Phoebe did, except I was quite a bit older than Phoebe when I went through what I did. I went through counseling with my uncle Sandy, a child psychologist, after I healed physically in the hospital. I asked Charlie and Colby if I could fly Sandy out here to talk with Phoebe, and things have been going well in regards to her progress. She sees me as a protecting figure, and I have told her that I went through some similar problems when I was a child. Colby and Charlie invited me here to have a safe place to go while the parents of the children I'm carrying visit with a relative in Puerto Rico. I was afraid to fly at this stage in my pregnancy, so I just happened to be here when they got the call about Phoebe.”

“So how do you know Charlie?”

“I met Charlie a couple of years ago through my boyfriend Michael. They met at a forensics conference in St. Louis. Charlie had the room next to Michael's and, as it turned out, had read papers authored by each other. Then Michael spilled the beans to Charlie that his girlfriend had a major crush on him. They arranged for me to meet Charlie a few months later. We took to each other pretty quickly, keeping in contact on a regular basis. I even mediated a fight between Charlie's brother Don and Colby over Skype once.”

“I'm sure that was an interesting conversation,” laughed Paige. “So, Phoebe's mother sent her to a reprogramming camp at the tender age of five? Why would anyone do that to a child so young, or at all for that matter?”

“Phoebe sees no problem with people being a different color than her, no issue with the fact that her Daddy is with her Papa, and no qualms about Pawpaw Alan being Jewish. The cult Janice joined made the KKK look like the NAACP by comparison. They, of course, encouraged Janice to put Phoebe in that camp. She was pretty far into the grip of the cult and willing to do whatever they thought was best. Phoebe is a very smart and strong-willed little girl. She wasn't about to change her mind about the people she knows love her, and was strong enough, even at five years old, to know that her mom was in the wrong.”

“I don't know if I would have been able to hold my convictions at that age and in those circumstances.”

“I don't know if I would have that young, but I did hold to them when I was ten. That was the age my mother held me captive in the basement and caused the scars I have today. So, she is very much like me, even if I didn't give birth to her. She has the same sort of spirit I have, and Colby's fighting spirit as well.”

Phoebe and Ralph came racing into the kitchen with papers in their hands. “Can we talk to Walter and Charlie to see if the answer is right, mom?”

“If they aren't busy, honey. Walter is trying to help Charlie fix something important.”

“I'll text Charlie and see if they are at a stopping point on the security system,”said Lia, picking up her phone. After a few clicks, she put it back down to await the reply. “It may be awhile before I get a response, guys. He's got a habit of putting the phone on silent when he's working on something. How about we go outside and watch the koi in the koi pond?”

“I'll get the fish food!”


End file.
